Moondog's Stories

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Hahaha oh this made me laugh.
You make me sound like I have a bunch of fantastic tales bottled up inside that can't wait to get out. That isn't really the case, but hopefully I can write something up that is at least a little entertaining.
Hmm...
Well I guess I could tell about the time I was almost eaten alive by ants.

We all have a bunch of fantastic tales bottled up inside. I like your contributions to the board so far, and thought you deserved a forum. Of course, its going to swing wildly off topic sooner or later, so i suggest you give us the best first.
And really, anybody could create this kind of thread: it just comes across less vain if someone else starts it.

Well how kind. I guess we could turn this thread into a place for anyone to share stories. That would be nice.
Anyway, my ant story. Well, my family and I were staying at a camp in the Serengeti while on safari. The place was called Kusini Camp (you can look it up if you want). We stayed in tents, but they were very very nice. My brother, my sister, and I were staying in one tent, and my mom and dad in the other. We had specific instructions to stick to the paths when walking to our tents though, the tick problem was really bad. Because of that, instead of walking the thirty feet straight between our two tents, we would have to walk to the fork in the path and then to the other tent, another 300 feet or so. Anyhow, one night (well I guess our only night) we were enjoying dinner in the main cafeteria with the rest of the camp. The owners were a really nice Australian couple, and there were about five other families at the camp (only one other American family, the rest were Canadian or Japanese). It got dark pretty early because it was the winter, so it was just about pitch black when we went outside to head back to our tents. Now, in Africa they have these things called lions. They like to eat you. We had to have an "armed" (I say it like that because all they had was a spear) Maasai warrior with a flashlight to guide us around at night every place we stayed. Our safari guide told us a fair share of stories about wandering around properties at night, thinking he was safe, only to find he'd been stalked by a lioness or leopard on his way to and from facilities. Needless to say, we dare not wonder alone at night. Our warrior guide-guy took the lead, shining the flashlight around the path to make sure we didn't run into any grumpy buffalo or elephants (if only he had shone it on the ground...), and we followed. My mom started to feel little pinch-like sensations on her legs, and she kept on slapping what she thought were mosquitoes off of her. By the time we reached my parent's tent, my sister suddenly started screaming. She jumped up on their deck and started stomping around, and each stomp resulted in dozens of tiny ants falling out of the bottom of her jeans. She had to remove her pants and pick out each ant individually to kill them. Her legs were bleeding.
Now, let's have a little biology lesson. These ants, which are called Driver ants, Safari ants, siafu, or a bunch of other names, are nasty little buggers. Elephants are scared to death of them, as they climb up their trunks and tear the shit out of em. Poachers used to (and I guess still do) take decapitated animal heads and leave them in the ants' marching line. By morning, they would have a clean skull. On top of all of this, besides their tendency to travel in long lines consisting of millions of ants, they are the only known insect to actively hunt people. Yes, these ants eat people, albeit sick and slow ones. We talked to many locals who have told us nightmarish stories of waking up and finding your entire room swarming with the ants, bed and ceiling included. The only surefire way to dispose of them is fire. The Maasai use their mandibles to hold together wounds, much like stitches. They also tend to kill people in the most unpleasant of ways: they enter your lungs through your nose and mouth, bitting all they way down, and suffocate you with shear numbers.
Keeping all of this in mind, I had to now leave my parent's tent, walk through all the ants back to the fork in the road, and then turn and go to my tent. By this time, my sister was hysterical and refused to head back. Our guide seemed relaxed. I grabbed a flashlight from my parent's tent and we headed back (with my sister riding on my dad's back). Somewhere along the road I guess I decided it would be a good idea to shine my flashlight on the ground. It was moving. My mother apparently stepped into the ants' line and scattered their numbers everywhere. The ground was literally swarming with ants. That's when I started to get bit. The larger soldier ants had the bigger mandibles, and could easily slice through our flesh. The littler, and far more numerous, ants would then start attacking the bite wounds that the soldiers had created. If given enough time, so I've heard, the littler ants will climb into the wounds and practically eat you alive. Lucky I only got bit a handful of times. My brother was getting bitten too. My sister was getting bitten on my dad's back, mind you! By this point, we were screaming and jumping around, trying to rush to our tent. When I finally got to the tent's entrance, I flung off my pants and went to work. The soldier ants that were still biting my legs had to first be killed, then have their heads pried off of me.
Then I went to sleep.

wow thats sounds quite ,,,,errr,,,,, riveting/exciting/scary im glad you made it out alive otherise this riveting story would not have been told !! but i love nature and there are these ants called bullet ants and thier bite in comparison to thier size they have the worst insect bit on the planet voted by people that have had the bite, apparently 5 bites to a fully grown adult will make them pass out through sever pain !! enjoy !